December is my favorite month of the year. But what is in the name of a month? Does a month by any other name feel as sweet? August is my least favorite as it initiates the return of reality in my household as school starts again, not to mention it is the hottest month to endure. While August may be meaningful in other regards, I prefer December.

Is August the most common birth month for professional baseball players? I first heard of this suggestion in a Slate.com article I read several years ago, which can be found here. The article presents a table showing a clear lead for August in players born in the United States since 1950. There were 503 players born in August, while July and June shared the lowest total with just 313 birthdays. What explains this occurrence? July 31 has been the standard cutoff date for little league, which means that being born in August allows you an extra year of development in lower divisions and makes you one of the older players at each step, creating a clear advantage. I will let Greg Spira’s article and John Holway’s book, The Baseball Astrologer, provide the rest of the details.

My goal is to see if the trend has continued since Spira’s table included major leaguers through the 2005 season. A change was made however, the cutoff date was changed to April 30 at the time this article was written, but the results of that change wouldn’t be evident in most players today. Mike Trout, born on Aug 7, was 15 when the age cutoff was changed, so it would not have affected him or anyone else his age or older. For now, I will take a look at Canadian and US-born players, 25 years old and older, who played in 2016, and were born in the months of July and August to see if the correlative behavior remains today.

August wins again based on the current data, there are 45% more players born in August than in July. Perhaps there is support for the notion that an extra year of development can increase the chance of making it to the big leagues. Let’s compare baseball to brain development. 80-90% of a child’s brain is developed within the first 5 years of life, so it is vital to talk and interact with a child as much as possible to improve cognition. The same can be said of baseball. While opinions may vary, the ability to play baseball is largely developed during the ages of 7 to 12. Gaining an extra year in brain or baseball development would be significant. While the data does suggest that your birth month can be a factor, it is certainly not the only factor in reaching the Major Leagues. I’ll have to revisit this study again in about 10 years to see if May proves to be advantageous over April.